Once upon a time there were elves that made sound software that sounded just like hardware, and Arturia was the most jolly kind. This was long long ago and since that time the world had grown up and up and up. Arturia’s software had become very teeny tiny, as big as a mouse!

“Sacre Bleu!” said one of the Arturia elves (which meant “What the Fuck” in French Elf). “We must make our software bigger, or it will disappear!”

But when they looked they found that all the bits they needed had been thrown out by Papa Arturia. There was no way to make the software bigger! Why had Papa done such a fool thing? All the elves stormed over and knocked on his door all at once.

Now, Papa was really the wisest of all the Arturias. He waddled leisurely out the door, belched and smiled. “Now listen. No one is going to buy this shit in 2015 anyway. Virtual? Merde! What do they say? You tell me”.

The bravest Arturia spoke up. “They say it sounds nothing like the original stuff. That it’s too deep or too high or too pink”. The other elves joined in. “Too fat”. “Not fat enough”. “Lacking the balls”. “Weepy bullshit”. “Woofy”. Papa Arturia nodded.

“So then, what do you think? What do we need? To make it bigger?” Everybody shook their heads sadly. “Non”, he continued. “We add the one thing that they all mention. We put our software in a box that has that one magic that every single dork in the world thinks is most important!”

Suddenly the elves were singing and dancing! Of course! How could they have been so wrong! They didn’t have to make the software any bigger at all! They just had to add

where are my glasses?

wooden ends. To make it sound better.

To be very honest it doesn’t sound any better but then again my eyesight is getting bad so I may as well get the controller that works best with the software I paid for. It works well enough, although once you go past editing a preset the actual tiny interface shows up and there’s not enough knobs for everything. But look, it’s pretty close.

Is this a good controller? Does it have NOVATION written on it? No? Then it might actually last more than a few months before exploding into a miasma of tiny screws.

Actually I just noticed the bottom key is a little too keen on the after touch.